According to the Center for Disease Control, the life expectancy in the United States has declined for the third year in a row. The last time this happened was a century ago, 1915-1918, when our country entered World War I and 675,000 Americans died because of the Spanish Flu.

This time it’s not war or a flu pandemic contributing to the decline in life expectancy, it’s hopelessness. The key contributors to the current decline are drug overdoses (at least 90,000 in 2018), suicides (45,000 in 2017), and alcohol abuse. Researchers Anne Case and Angus Deaton have dubbed these as "deaths of despair.”

We live in a time when believers are “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Eph. 4:14). This is especially true in regard to the return of Jesus. Today, we face a myriad of differing “schemes” regarding the rapture and other end time events.

It’s becoming increasingly popular in Bible-believing churches to believe that God rejected the nation of Israel after the first century Jews rejected Jesus. Those who hold this view believe that the Lord has replaced Israel with the church. As a result, the church now inherits the kingdom promises of the Old Testament in a “spiritual” sense.

This teaching often goes by the name of “replacement theology” or “amillennialism.” I have many problems with such teaching starting the words of Paul in Romans 11:2, “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.” I am not sure how some get around Paul’s clear assertion in this text that God has not rejected Israel, but many do.

A recent news story about a thief in Rochelle Park, NJ caught my attention. In the process of robbing a home, he woke up the couple who lived there. Not wanting to get caught, he climbed back out of the window through which he had entered the house and fled from the scene.

Here’s where the story gets interesting. He had previously arranged with a car service to meet him in the neighborhood to unwittingly provide his way of escape. However, in his haste he climbed into the backseat of a police car parked a block away from the home he had attempted to rob.

It’s ironic when you think of it. Those who attack prophecy teachers for saying we are in the last days are themselves fulfilling a key biblical prophecy of the last days.

Peter wrote this about these end time scoffers, “. . . knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation” (2 Pet. 3:4-5).

The group the apostle addressed denied the Genesis account of the flood and hence the reality of God’s judgment. Today this scoffing springs from a variety of sources, including those in the household of faith.

This is my third article on how an amillennial view of Scripture can, over time, open the day to Socialism. I’m writing in response to an article depicting how socialism is gaining a foothold in many churches across the United States.

Please note I am not saying all amillennialists are Socialists, certainly not. My point is that churches with a long history of amillennialism and its accompanying worldview seem to be much more susceptible to a Marxist way of thinking.

I believe this is because they distort the biblical worldview in a number of ways:

Immigration remains a hot topic in America. Caravans of migrants are traveling up through Mexico hoping to break into the United States. Some believe we should let them all in and take care of them. After all, isn’t that the “Christian” thing to do?

Others support President Trump in sending the military to protect our border. Our nation has long been a haven for asylum seekers and immigrants, but there is a process for those seeking to enter our nation.

Why are believers so divided on this issue? I believe this comes from confusing the role of government with that of our responsibility to help the needy.

If you have followed the news regarding Brett Kavanaugh Senate hearings, you likely feel the same frustrations I do. The false accusation of a woman, who has no proof whatsoever of her claims, could derail his confirmation to the Supreme Court.

It feels as though the wrong is winning and perhaps for a moment it is. However, Scripture tells me that any success that some may have in discrediting Kavanaugh is not the end of the story. God will have the final say in the matter.

Satan hates the pretribulation Rapture and throughout the history of the church has sought to either bury the doctrine under layers of false teachings or discredit it. If ever there was a time in which this rings true, it’s today. His hostility to it began in the earliest days of the church.

Why does Satan hate the Rapture? Scripture gives us several reasons for this.

Most people disdain the whole idea; many Christians regard it as an out of date belief.

“Who really believes in the Rapture anyway?” some ask. “Why should I put my hope in something that no one believed until the nineteenth century? Why would anyone look for something that only recently appeared in the long history of the church?”

It’s so easy to personalize our battles as being against a particular person or group and forget that our enemy is blinding their eyes to the truth, deceiving them, and turning them against what is good. Paul’s words in Ephesians 6:12 remind us that people and groups are not our enemy; it’s Satan who deceives others.

Because of the nature of our fight we have a most powerful weapon at our disposal. . . .

What can we do when hurt by the slander of others? We can rest in God’s “steadfast love” for us knowing that He sees what we are going through; we can trust Him to defend us in His time.Until then, the Psalmist says to “Be strong, and let your heart take courage.” So hang in there! The Lord’s love will not fail us regardless of what others say about us or do to us.

While in college at John Brown University, I read Hal Lindsey's book The Late Great Planet Earth. His book greatly heightened my interest in prophecy to the point where I expected the rapture to occur at any moment, yes even way back in the 1970’s.

Late one afternoon I dozed off after hours of reading and studying. Suddenly, the sound of a trumpet awoke me from a deep sleep. For a moment, I thought “this is it; I am going to meet Jesus in the air.” After a second or two I realized the trumpet fanfare came from someone warming up for a nearby rehearsal. It was not the trumpet sound of 1 Thessalonians 4, which still remains a joyous future hope for all of Jesus' followers.

However, I know many people today do not take kindly to the idea of the rapture. They either fear it or disdain it for a variety of reasons. It’s certainly a source of unpopularity for those who teach or write about it; I know this from experience.

Several years ago, I discovered I could learn a lot from some of the shadier characters of the Bible. It was not that their examples were so stellar, most failed miserably in their walk with God. However, I have gleaned much from their bad examples over the years.

You may be wondering what in the world we can learn from such misfits and failures. How can they possibly help us in our walk with the Lord? Here are some examples from my book.

Please consider purchasing my book to learn more about what some lesser known guys of the Bible can teach you about your walk with God.

We see this today in the record number of suicides among both the young and old. Despair rather than hope fills the minds of so many today. The outcome of confining all our dreams to this world is often bitterness, anger, fear, and depression. I have tasted of this despair, too, in my past.

For as long as I can remember, I have always thought that if God exists and is powerful enough to create all that we see, then He’s certainly capable of communicating His Word to us in an accurate and trustworthy way. It’s not that I based my belief on reason, but my thinking opened the door to accept the claims of Scripture to be God’s Word to us.

I grew up loving Scripture. It started in Awana as I memorized God’s Word and continued in Sunday school as I marveled at the accounts of creation, Moses, and the Israelites.

Perhaps this is why I feel such grief at the current attacks on the Bible. GQ Magazine referred to the Bible as “one of the most overrated books of all time” and placed it on its list of 21 books “you don’t have to read.” This is so incredibly sad.

Jesus’ tomb is empty; it’s an established historical fact. All the attacks on Jesus’ resurrection come in the form of trying to explain the vacant grave. They do this because they cannot deny the reality that His body was missing from His tomb.

However, no one has ever been able to come up with a credible explanation for Christ's empty grave. Jesus is indeed alive!

The resurrection matters so much to our faith because if Jesus did not walk bodily out of His grave, if His body was buried somewhere else in ancient Israel, then humanity has absolutely no hope.